Crispy Chilli Whitebait Salad with Salt and Vinegar ‘Crisps’

Name: Crispy Chilli Whitebait Salad with Salt and Vinegar ‘Crisps’
Yield: A Light Lunch or Starter for 4
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: 1½ tbsp sea salt; 150 g/5½ oz white cabbage, finely shredded; 2 fat carrots, coarsely grated; ⅓ cucumber, cut into matchsticks; 3 slices pitta bread; 75 ml/2½ fl oz/5 tbsp.non-extra-virgin olive oil; 125 ml/4 fl oz/½ cup malt vinegar; lemon wedges; rapeseed (canola) or sunflower oil, for frying; rapeseed (canola) or sunflower oil, for frying; 250 g/9 oz.fresh whitebait (or frozen**); rapeseed (canola) or sunflower oil, for frying; ½ tsp salt; ½ tsp chilli powder (less if you’re a wuss); ½ tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp sumac; 2 heaped tbsp flour; salt and freshly ground black pepper; salt and freshly ground black pepper; 1 heaped tsp English mustard; juice of 2 lemons; 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil; 2–3 sprigs of fresh tarragon, chopped; big handful of fresh parsley, chopped; big handful of rocket (arugula); big handful of rocket (arugula); 4 pickled onions, sliced; ⅓ cucumber, cut into matchsticks

Preparation info

A Light Lunch or Starter for
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Salmagundi

By Sally Butcher

Published 2014

About

Whitebait has to be one of the world’s great novelty foods – toy fish that you can chow down, head, tail and all.*

This recipe is proper fusion stuff: part Essex pub grub, part Levantine cuisine.

Ingredients

For the Salad

3 slices pitta bread
75 ml/2½ fl oz/5

Europe
United Kingdom
Starter
Lunch
Pescatarian
Spicy

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.

Carefully split the pitta bread slices so that you have 6 oval sheets, and spread them inner-side up on a baking sheet. Whisk the oil and vinegar together and brush the slices with the mixture before sprinkling them generously with se